Tonight’s East County Fire Protection District meeting could get testy as I would expect a number of Bethel Island residents requesting an explanation for a fire that left two homes destroyed and a third one damaged. Aside from that, there should be some good discussions on the future of the district.
Absent from the report was the typical operations report which includes response times. This is because its the first of the month and the stats are being pulled and will be reported verbally. There will be a full report next month. If you recall, the average response time for February was 7:18.
Consider the Formation of Board Subcommittees
The Board may look into establishing three subcommittees tonight to allow for a smaller group of Directors to hold more in-depth topic discussions on the following items:
- Budget/Finance
- Services Models
- Community Outreach/Public Education
Editors comment: This is all for nothing if the Board is unsuccessful in a future revenue enhancement because the Board is already three-months behind the ball on this issue. The focus should not be subcommittees—it should be gathering intel on the next enhancement and keeping a five-station model because we are 14-months away from going back to three stations while if the economy doesn’t improve, it may be only a two-station District.
The Board should scrap this subcommittee idea and focus all of its attention on the Revenue Enhancement and formulate subcommittees for that large task at hand.
The budget is not large enough for a budget/finance subcommittee while there is no need to look at service models until you know the future revenue on whether or not
Selection of District Board Officers
With Oakley Mayor Kevin Romick stepping down tonight, the Board will be selecting a new Board President and Vice President. This is basically a continuation item from the January 7, 2013 meeting. With Brentwood Vice Mayor Joel Bryant currently serving as the Vice President, one would think it’s only natural he is appointed Board President.
Development of Surplus Property Disposition Policy
This is an interesting item as they are trying to figure out what to do with property not being used and whether or not to sell, rent, lease, or re-use property. There is an interesting MEMO attached within this staff report highlighting all the property and potential uses.
It lists current stations as well as potential stations locations which includes Station 94 potentially moving to E. Cypress/Summer Lake Drive intersection. The advantages of this are that it shortens response times to Bethel Island by an estimated 4-minutes. There is also a potential option for Station 59 near Highway 4/Bixler Road where it would even out response times for a bulk of Discovery Bay.
Request for Proposal from City of Brentwood to Provide Administrative Services
The Directors are looking at a potential request for proposal from the City of Brentwood to provide the same services as the District receives from Contra Costa County which includes:
- Auditor-Controller: Payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, account reporting, and general internal audits.
- Human Resources: Management of employee benefits program and personnel services
- Information Technology: maintenance of internal network between District and County systems for currently provided services including financial, personnel, and information security programs.
It should be noted the City of Brentwood is currently providing IT Services not covered under the Contra Costa County Contract.
Editorial Comment: My question here is why is the Board requesting a Proposal from only Brentwood and not opening it up to other cities or private companies who may be able to provide the same services at a cheaper rate.
8 comments
Bethel Island should hold the District accountable for the fire. Yes they saved a home but lost two.
This board is wasting peoples time with the wasteful actions. Burkholder is right, no revenue equals back to three station model. Some of these new Brentwood guys are acting as if the District is as big as CONFIRE which is not the case. Scale back and focus on the task at hand which is fixing the revenue problem.
Burke, the District has a spending problem and it will only continue should they get more money. They need to keep cutting until they are living within their means
please suggest where those cuts are to come from?????
I am sorry that people lost their homes. I never want to see someone loose everything in a fire BUT what explanation can you demand from the fire dept? How can you blame them??? Before the fire district, it was all volunteers. Could the volunteer Bethel Island Fire have saved those homes? Probably not. The Oakley-Knightsen Volunteers would have responded with Mutual Aid. Again, could all of those volunteers saved those homes? Needed a Quint for ladder/water-again it would have still needed to come from ConFire. Fast forward to today. Resources were on scene FASTER than the volunteers. I understand that there was an issue with a wire down and fire crews pulling back for safety, had to wait for PG&E. Again, I am sorry but your home is not more valuable than a life. Now to the house-the first one was gone by the time the call was made. the second one I understand and have observed had cedar siding. That stuff BURNS-quickly!! And the added challenge of the house being on piers.
It was said numerous times that if the fire tax failed, homes could be lost. Instead of blaming the fire dept., maybe its time to put the blame where it belongs–US. We have allowed homes to be built and not held our county and city leaders accountable. As one Oakley Councilman once told me, “its not our responsibility to provide fire protection, its ECCFPD”. So they just kept approving building with no thought if the fire dept had the resources to provide service. The BOS refused to address the funding issue–something that has been an issue for YEARS. There has been numerous reports and study that said that an additional funding source (i.e. tax) was needed to properly fund a professional fire dept.
Its time to fact the truth. We are going to continue to loose homes and its not going to change until a fire like the one on Bethel Island happens in a more populated area. If a couple of homes in downtown Brentwood burn to the ground, then I bet people will pay attention to those that know instead of the those that think they know–The CCTaxpayers Assn. comes to mind.
Oh one more little detail that is important–this fire was at the end of Taylor Rd. I challenge each and everyone of you to drive that road. You have to slow down for the turns, especially the ones just before the house. Then think about the challenge of a fire truck with its tanks full of water taking those turns.
Lets also not forget that it took PG&E 90-minutes to get out there for the down power line!
Barbara got it right. Until adequate funding is found in the form of increased revenue, any other issues that the board grapples with is just smoke and mirrors.
There is only one real solution. We need to pay for the service we hope to expect.
“It’s time to face the truth”.
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